National Blog

Another great movie to watch in Black History Month is Detroit, which focuses on the Aliers Hotel incident that took place during the riots of 1967. The riots started after Detroit police raided an unlicensed, after hours club on the office of a [...]

The Good
Reduces red tape to speed up the permitting process for state and local government and private sector transportation projects.
Gives the Veterans Administration flexibility to use vacant properties for commercial and [...]

During negotiations over last week’s budget deal, there was an effort to add The CREATES Act to the bill as a “pay-for.” CREATES aims to bring generics drugs to market and could reduce Medicare and Medicaid spending by as much as $3.8 [...]

The Senate passed the big spending budget bill by a vote of 71-28 and the House passed it by a vote of 240-186. Sixty-seven House Republicans voted no and fifteen Republican Senators voted no. Remember that next time someone tells you the [...]

The Senate has reached a bipartisan budget deal and like most things bipartisan it is bad. In fact it may be the worst deal ever.
Here are the details:
Lifts the budget caps and increases “defense” spending by $80 billion in Fiscal Year [...]

The Good
Reduces spending by $48.4 billion, including $25.8 billion from eliminating programs.
Increases the ability of Medicare Part D plans to negotiate for lower drug prices.
Adopts a two-year penny plan to reduce [...]

The Senate will be considering immigration reform. Senate Majority Leader McConnell filed cloture on the Immigration bill last Friday immediately after passage of the budget. McConnell is using a House-passed bill (H.R. 2579) as a shell and [...]

In addition to funding for a border wall and other border security measures, immigration hardliners are sure to push to include mandatory E-Verify in any immigration legislation considered by Congress. E-Verify is a (currently) voluntary program [...]

The Senate failed to get cloture on the spending bill and now leadership is trying to get an agreement on moving forward. There is still time to call your Senators and Representatives and tell them to oppose the big spending bill.
The [...]

Yesterday the House passed a bill combining the approximately $658.2 defense appropriations bill with a continuing resolution keeping the government open till March 23.
The bill now heads to the Senate where it should be voted on Wednesday or [...]